Russian defense ministry changes negotiators on Mistral contract

04.05.2011 Russian defense ministry changed all negotiators in the talks on procurement contract of French Mistral class landing ships, reported RIA Novosti referring to a source in the ministry.

"New representatives of Russian defense ministry will participate in the coming round of Russian-French negotiations on Mistrals. Presently, they receive all appropriate documents of this contract", said the interviewee.

He reminded that "two key representatives of defense ministry – Navy deputy commander for armaments Nikolai Borisov and deputy defense minister Vladimir Popovkin – withdrew from negotiations earlier on".

Two weeks ago Russian president Dmitry Medvedev released Borisov from the office and dismissed him from service. Vice Admiral Borisov represented Russian Navy at talks on the Mistral procurement.

Being one of initiators and defense ministry's principal supervisor of the Mistral sale, Popovkin was appointed the director of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) on Apr 29, having changed Anatoly Perminov. His position in defense ministry remains vacant.

So far, RIA Novosti has no information about who is going to represent Russian defense ministry at the talks on Mistral class ships.

"Virtually, that is just a technical replacement. The negotiations have gone far, so positions of the parties are known. The only question is whether French party would sell fully equipped ships to Russia or not", underlined the source.

Disputable matter is two NATO standard control systems – tactical data system Zenith-9 and fleet command system SIC-21. As was earlier reported, France is ready to deliver Zenith-9 to Russia without production certificate, and does not want to deliver SIC-21 at all. The only French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is equipped with SIC-21 system.

Intergovernmental agreement on purchase of assault landing ship Mistral was tied on Jan 25, 2011 in Saint-Nazaire (France). It contained neither deadlines nor costs of the future contract; they will be specified in a separate agreement to be signed by Rosoboronexport (Russia) and DCNS (France). Earlier on, Vladimir Popovkin said the contract was evaluated at least as EUR 1.5 bln.